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Sunday, March 15, 2015

On 17th Feb, 2015 Jeff Hoogland has announced the final release of Bodhi Linux 3.0.0, a desktop distribution based on Ubuntu 14.04 and featuring a customised Enlightenment 19.3 desktop: "Today I am very happy to share with you the first stable release for the third major update to the Bodhi Linux operating system. Notable features in the 3.0.0 release: Enlightenment E19.3, Terminology 0.8.0, ePad 0.9.0, Numix icons, Linux kernel 3.16, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS core. The release images for 3.0.0 support a wide range of hardware including: non-PAE processors, UEFI BIOS, SeaBIOS Chromebooks. Our stable release is not the only thing that is new at Bodhi Linux this month. Our main website, AppCenter, Wiki, and Forums have all gotten complete overhauls to go alongside this new release. If you are new to Bodhi Linux please take a look at the Quick Start Guide that opens by default when you first boot the live CD / operating system."

I have used Bodhi 2.x quite extensively on a couple of low powered machines I have. I liked the attractive interface of Bodhi and it's simplistic design. Bodhi 2.x was based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and the present release is based on Ubuntu 14.04. Unlike Ubuntu Trusty, which is still running Linux kernel 3.13.0 series, Bodhi ships with kernel 3.16.0.

Bodhi Linux provides options to download 32-bit, 64-bit, legacy and Chromebook version. I chose 64-bit ISO, about 612 MB in size. I created a live USB using Linux Mint Image Writer on a 4 GB USB drive. First I did a live boot on my laptop and then installed it to a 100 GB drive to understand Bodhi's performance better.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

On 16th February 2015, Clemens Toennies has announced the release of Netrunner 15, a desktop Linux distribution based on Kubuntu 14.10 and featuring the new KDE Plasma 5.2.0 desktop: "We are proud to announce the official release of Netrunner 15 'Prometheus'. Netrunner 15 is revised from the ground up - as the first distribution, it officially ships the new KDE Plasma Desktop 5.2. Therefore, an upgrade from previous Netrunner series with KDE 4.x is neither officially available nor really recommended. This release is 64-bit only. What's new? This release features the brand new KDE Plasma Desktop 5.2, packed together with the freshly released KDE Frameworks 5.7 and Qt 5.4. It takes a great deal of Oxygen and a little of Breeze and mixes them into a blend of tradition and modern. All previous settings and add-ons have been carefully restored to work in this new environment. With Netrunner 15 we took the chance to ship a finely revised set of applications."

I downloaded the 64-bit Netrunner ISO, 1.8 GB in size for this review. I created a live USB using Linux Mint Image writer on a 4 GB USB drive and installed it on my Asus K55VM laptop. Netrunner 15 is based on Kubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) and ships with Linux kernel 3.16.0, with KDE 4.14.1 and plasma 5.2. Dolphin 4.14.1 is the default file manager.